Hi @mkjames You raise a crucial aspect of caregiving in your post: feelings of guilt! I wish there was a way to banish guilt from the lives of all caregivers. I know I always wanted to do everything and anything that would ease my wife's journey and when I couldn't for some reason, would be wracked with guilt. Caregiving comes with no training, often with little or no advance warning, and no employee manual! Suddenly we simply get dumped into the deep end of the pool (or middle of the ocean) and are told to swim as best we can.

Caregiving, as you noted, also often contains times of tremendous anxiety over what is to come, what is around the next corner, all when we are dealing with a full plate of 'today'! Living, as they say, 'in the moment' is very hard with caregiving since there is not only 'the moment', but the past moments of things undune, and the future moments of far too many things to get done! Then to top that off the slightest change in our patient can alter our entire caregiving landscape and every moment suddenly becomes different.

I will also endorse your suggestion of hospice. It was an extremely emotional and almost devastating moment when the doctor gave us the prescription of hospice care, but the care my wife received though hospice (she chose home hospice care) was second to none and one of the very few times her medical care was truly patient-oriented rather than healthcare-system oriented.

You capture the caregiving 'adventure' well!

Continued strength, courage, and peace